The Health Sciences and Human Services Library (HS/HSL) is one of eight institutions to serve as Regional Medical Libraries in the National Network of Libraries of Medicine (NNLM). Through a cooperative agreement from the National Library of Medicine (NLM), the NNLM will focus on improving consumer access to high-quality health information in communities throughout the United States, specifically working with public libraries. (See news release here.)

This partnership is a three-year pilot program to support the NIH’s All of Us Research Program. Activities in the pilot are designed to:

Help public libraries support the health information needs of their users.

Support community engagement through public libraries for All of Us.

Operate the All of Us Training Center, the home for training and resources about and related to the program for consumers, health professionals, librarians, and researchers.

“Libraries serve as vital community hubs, and this collaboration presents a perfect opportunity to help the public understand how health research impacts all of us,” said Patricia Flatley Brennan, RN, PhD, director of NLM. “Working with our vast network of public libraries, we hope to contribute to medical breakthroughs that may lead to more tailored disease prevention and treatment solutions for generations to come.”

The All of Us Research Program aims to build one of the largest, most diverse data sets of its kind for health research, with 1 million or more volunteers nationwide who will sign up to share their information over time. Researchers will be able to access participants’ de-identified information for a variety of studies to learn more about the biological, behavioral, and environmental factors that influence health and disease. Their findings may lead to more individualized health care approaches in the future.